The Baby Issue

I am going to be a bit controversial here, and I'm going to rant. Women are discriminated against in the workforce, there's not doubt about that, but they are also held back by a force directed by the home and society in general: children. Now, wait, before anyone starts claiming that there's child-hating going on here, I need to clarify. Kids are wonderful, and parents that are blessed with children often find it to be one of the greatest joys, if not the greatest joy, they ever experience; the problem lies in the fact that women are expected to have children, which usually includes giving up or putting their careers on hold, and doing most of the childcare. Even I, at seventeen, have felt the pressure to think about starting a family when I'm older. I want to be an actress, an extremely time-consuming career, and I have been asked by family members what I plan to do when (not if) children come into the picture. Surely, people insist, I would be willing to put the brake on my passion. No matter how many times I insist, however, that kids are not a desire of mine, I am met with "oh, that will change" and "you have no idea what you're talking about, you just don't understand". What? Do I not get to decide whether or not my life is a no-exit into the world of motherhood? I guarantee, this dilemma has never been forced upon any of my male friends... I digress.

source: medium.com

Still, the baby question is one that has been keeping women out of the workforce and higher positions of employment. It's one of the reasons that some defend the gender pay gap. There is a bias that a woman is simply a ticking baby time-bomb that will leave her incapacitated and unable to fulfill her duties in her occupation. So, before she even has a chance to prove herself, she is docked pay for a hypothetical, a chance that something might happen because she was born female, even if she has already had children or does not want a child at all. Also, the time that a woman would be allowed to take is only twelve weeks and unpaid, yet she must suffer for her entire career because of the childbearing potential. Shockingly, men are paid more when they become fathers because they are inferred to be the breadwinners of the family (Center for American Progress).

Another issue is the tradition that women are supposed to be the ones that handle childcare. A Harvard study details that a majority of women who have cut back on hours at work or have left the workforce have not done so by choice. Women still do the largest part in cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other domestic labor. The culture is that childrearing is "women's work" and when a working woman does not take on most of the responsibility, she is labelled as an inconsiderate, greedy, atrocious mother.

It is inequitable that women are expected to be defined by children, and to feel incomplete without them.

One of my favorite writers, Caitlin Moran, put the issue quite humorously "Batman doesn't want a baby in order to feel he's "done everything." He's just saved Gotham again!... Batman doesn't have to put up with this- why should we?" (How To Be a Woman).